


All I Need is a Miracle

by ClaraxBarton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: All the apologies, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Anal Sex, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Bearded Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Clint Is a Good Bro, F/M, Frottage, I was an idiot, I'm sorry everyone who is about to tag out, I've just been listening to a lot of 80s love songs, Identity Porn, Idiots in Love, It's not Shrunkyclunks, M/M, Modern AU, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Oral Sex, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Rimming, Stucky - Freeform, Tags now updated, a lot of things that aren't a good parallel, and a fairy godmother, and a prince charming kind of, and it's not a perfect parallel to cinderella, because let's not kid ourselves, but look, gonna be honest the chapter lengths are all over the place, sam is a good bro, so sorry for that too, steve rogers is way too much of a punk to be considered prince charming, still am, the title isn't as depressing as it seems, there's a ball, there's like
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-07-18 05:53:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16112198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: So maybe Bucky has a shit job, and a bad apartment, and no real prospects for better versions of either of those. But he's alive and he's...the point is, he's alive. But then his best friend sets him up on a blind date with a hot, bearded asshole and being alive isn't good enough anymore.A riff on the Cinderella fairy tale.And a gift fic for a very special someone and their birthday.





	1. In the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luvsanime02](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/gifts).



> This is a gift-fic for my fucking amazing beta reader, Ro. She wanted some Stucky and a retelling of a fairy tale. As per my usual, I KIND OF managed to follow through, with my very own meandering interpretation of said request.

 

It wasn’t that James hated his job.

 

He just hated his boss. And most of his coworkers. And the office. And the smell of the bathrooms. And the feel of the paper towels in the break room. And the squeak of his feet on the not properly installed tiles that squeaked no matter what fucking shoes he wore.

 

And he hated the entire  _ idea _ of what he did, what his boss did, and what his coworkers did. They were the scum of the earth, all of them, collectively, and their job was to make more scum and then  _ sell _ it.

 

Yeah, he hated his job. He hated every single thing about it.

 

Except,  _ except _ , the nonexistent dress code that allowed him to wear a hoodie and jeans every day of the week if he felt like it.

 

That was the only redeeming thing about his job.

 

That and the paycheck that kept said clothes on his back and food in his stomach and his rent paid for his third of the truly shitty apartment in Washington Heights that he shared with two other roommates, whose names he was still hard pressed to remember correctly, even after living with them for the past six months.

 

David and Alison?

 

Donna and Allen?

 

He didn’t know. 

 

The guy did something in theatre, and slept most of the day and worked all night and Bucky had only encountered him twice in the last two months.

 

The woman, on the other hand, did something in fashion and she was  _ never _ there and as far as Bucky knew she used her shitty bedroom in their shitty three bedroom apartment as a closet and nothing else.

 

Which was fine.

 

Bucky didn’t like people, and not having to interact with his two roommates, strangers to each other as much as to him, meant two less people to deal with. 

 

Unlike at work.

 

HYDRA Publishing Group had a reputation, well-earned and humiliating, of being a ‘family’ of tabloids, websites, vloggers and social media handles that distributed the unvarnished truth about politicians, celebrities, athletes and anyone unfortunate enough to piss off Alexander Pierce, the head of HYDRA. 

 

Bucky had the truly distinct misfortune of writing for Red Star, one of HYDRA’s most infamous rags, and the last seven months- seven months spent working for Pierce, writing actual, utter, steaming, maggot-infested garbage - had been some of the worst in his life.

 

They ranked right up there with getting kicked out of his last foster family’s home at the age of sixteen when he came out as gay.

 

Right up there with his first month of basic in the Army, when he and Clint Barton had been determined to bury each other, until they finally realized that instead of killing each other, they should probably be friends.

 

Right up there with his last month in the Army, his last deployment in Iraq, the guy in the suicide vest and Bucky making the monumentally stupid fucking decision to try to disarm it, and then the weeks of floating in and out of consciousness at Ramstein and then at Walter Reed before he was finally lucid enough to realize his left arm was  _ gone _ .

 

Right up there with any of the seventeen months after that, when Bucky had barely had the will to live, much less to go to physical therapy, to let his body get carved into again and again and again before finally he had that one spot of luck, what felt like his first in years, when he had been selected for Tony Stark’s fancy new prosthetic trial program, and gifted with a heavy as fuck bionic arm.

 

Right up there with the three months  _ before _ Bucky had been forced into this job, months when he had couch surfed his way through Brooklyn and worked himself into debt with the wrong people because if there was one thing that was more familiar to Bucky than self-loathing, it was gambling, and while he was lucky more often than not - at least in cards - when he  _ wasn’t _ lucky, he really wasn’t lucky. So he’d racked up debt and he’d found himself at the wrong end of a few guns and Pierce had been there, had stepped in and saved Bucky’s life and taken his debt and offered Bucky a job.

 

A job that, objectively speaking, was worse than having to wipe Satan’s ass every day.

 

The Red Star, as often as not, printed the truth -the awful, gut churning, nearly impossible to believe truth- about the people unfortunate enough to grace its pages. And when the truth didn’t line up with what Pierce wanted, or when it was too boring, then yeah, the truth got exaggerated and distorted and Pierce lawyered up and smirked while the sales continued to soar and the reputations of some of America’s most sacred icons plunged off the side of a cliff.

 

And Bucky was responsible for more than a few of those swan dives.

 

He would quit, if he could. God, he would quit in a fucking heartbeat.

 

But there was the matter of his debt - 150k when Pierce had assumed it - and the matter of Becca.

 

Separated when Bucky had been twelve and Becca had been eight and their parents had died in a car accident, Bucky had sank in the system while Becca, younger, pretty and able to use the Barnes family charm to come off as adorable instead of as a troublemaker like Bucky, had been fostered and then adopted before she was nine.  They had kept in touch, over the last fifteen years, had written letters and called and Becca had visited him in the hospital, had insisted he spend leaves with her even though it meant crashing on the couch of her apartment while she went to classes at university all day.

 

Pierce knew about her, knew where she lived in Brooklyn, knew about the job she had doing paralegal work at a nonprofit center, knew where she liked to work out, knew her favorite coffee shop and her favorite bars and if Bucky didn’t pay off his debt, if Bucky walked away from Pierce, it would be Becca who would pay it off. In whatever way Pierce wanted.

 

So. Bucky hated his job and he hated his life, most days, most minutes, hell, most seconds.

 

Today, this minute, this  _ second _ was no different than all of the others. Even getting called into Pierce’s office wasn’t that unusual, and even though Bucky had to steel himself for what promised to be an unpleasant interaction because  _ all  _ of his interactions with Pierce were unpleasant, Bucky didn’t realize that this minute, this second, was when his life was about to change dramatically.

 

-o-

 

HYDRA occupied three floors of a high-rise office building in Midtown. HYDRA- or at least Pierce - owned the building and rented out the other floors. There was a gym available in the basement that Bucky made use of frequently because it was free and because he needed to maintain his upper body strength to compensate for the bionic arm and because, well, running on a treadmill at two am meant he wasn’t doing something stupid like finding a card game or drugs or a bar fight. 

 

Pierce’s office was on the top floor, along with the other executives of the company, as far away from the lowly scum gathering peons that made his empire run as he could be. 

 

Being invited to Pierce’s office was only ever two things - catastrophically bad or catastrophically good. Pierce wasn’t chatty, he wasn’t invested in the people who worked for him, and Bucky had the impression that Pierce viewed himself as the only intelligent human in the city, perhaps even the world, and was constantly frustrated that no one else was clever enough to understand him or his plans or the way the world really worked.

 

Pierce liked to fire people personally - whether they were senior editors or freelance photographers or janitors or interns. So absolutely no one looked forward to being called to his office. Even if you hadn’t done anything to merit his displeasure, it didn’t mean you were safe from Pierce’s wrath. 

 

Bucky knew, though, that Pierce wasn’t going to fire him. Not today. Probably not for a very long time.

 

Not when Bucky was so pathetically good at his job. And not when Bucky was still disgustingly deep in debt.

 

When he arrived in Pierce’s office, the man was standing in front of the floor to ceiling windows that allowed him to look out over the city. 

 

His back was to Bucky, hands in his trousers pockets, and Bucky was left standing beside a chair, waiting for Pierce to give him direction, for five minutes.

 

Pierce finally turned around, and the smirk on his face was small and tight, somewhere between constipated and bored.

 

“James.”

 

“Mr. Pierce.”

 

“You’re aware that Tony Stark is hosting his annual Gala next Friday night.”

 

Pierce didn’t phrase it as a question, and even though Bucky  _ hadn’t _ known that and hadn’t known he should even  _ care _ about something like that, he kept his mouth shut.

 

“I’ve got a plus one, so you’ll accompany me.”

 

“What?”

 

_ That _ provoked a response from Bucky because  _ what _ ?

 

Since when was Pierce in the mood to be generous to anyone, ever? And since when did he want to be seen in public with one of his employees?

 

“Do you have a tux?” Pierce asked instead of explaining himself.

 

“No.” Why the hell would Bucky have a tux?

 

“You can just wear your dress uniform then,” Pierce waved a hand, completely unconcerned.

 

“No, I can’t,” Bucky bit out.

 

Pierce lifted his eyebrows, his pinched expression growing more pronounced.

 

“Don’t tell me you don’t have one of those either.”

 

“This event sounds like a political activity. I’m not allowed to wear my uniform to those.”

 

“It’s a charity ball to raise money for military veterans,” Pierce said, annunciating the words slowly and precisely, as if explaining a very simple fact to a very stupid child.

 

Bucky shrugged.

 

“Unless I missed something, Stark’s event isn’t organized or hosted by one of the congressionally chartered veterans organizations  _ or _ by any organization approved by the VA department. If any veteran attends this event in uniform, it’s the same thing as saying the government endorses it. Which is prohibited. I can’t wear my dress uniform to this. And I don’t have a tux.”

 

Which, hopefully, would be the end of  _ that _ .

 

“Then you have one week to acquire a tux. You’re a resourceful guy. Get yourself a haircut and for God’s sake,  _ shave _ . You look like you actually need the charity Stark is organizing.”

 

Considering that Bucky was sporting a prosthetic arm designed by Stark, an arm that he had been given  _ as _ one of Stark’s charity endeavors, Bucky felt like rolling his eyes.

 

And giving Pierce the finger.

 

And any number of other things.

 

“Why am I going?” He had to ask. He usually didn’t ask questions. It was one of the things Pierce liked about him, and while Bucky could give a flying fuck whether or not Pierce  _ liked _ him, Bucky knew that if Pierce  _ didn’t _ like him, it might be bad for Becca.

 

“Because you’re a veteran, and you’ve got that shiny bit of hardware, and Stark invites all of his rich and famous friends to come rub elbows with all of you,” Pierce grimaced and waved a vague hand at Bucky. “My secretary assures me that you are by far the most attractive writer we have on staff. I know, personally, just how good you are at talking yourself into trouble. So you’re going to go to this thing and charm however many people you can into giving us dirt that we can publish.”

 

The very idea of Bucky being used as some kind of… honeypot… was ludicrous. 

 

It sounded like some bad, half-formed joke.

 

But the look on Pierce’s face was serious.

 

“Oh, and James.”

 

Bucky drew in a deep breath. Those three words were  _ never _ a good thing.

 

“Impress me, and we’ll be able to consider your ...account almost balanced. Disappoint me and…”

 

Pierce turned back to the window, not bothering to finish his sentence or see Bucky out of his office.

 

But Bucky didn’t really need him to.

 

He knew exactly how to get the fuck out of there. And he knew exactly what would happen to Becca if he disappointed Pierce.

 

It was only three forty-five, but there was no way Bucky was going to sit at his desk for the next two hours and pretend he could actually squeeze out any kind of story for print. Plus, he already had his three articles in for the Sunday morning edition of Red Star.

 

So instead of returning to his desk, Bucky took the elevator all the way down to the lobby and walked out of the building.

 

As soon as he was two blocks away, he pulled out his phone and dialed his best friend.

 

She answered on the third ring.

 

“If you’re calling to ask me to leave Clint and run away with you to the Bahamas, the answer is yes,” was Natasha’s only greeting.

 

Just hearing her voice did wonders for releasing the tension in Bucky’s spine.

 

“Any chance you can help me find a tux for like… free? Apparently I’m going to Tony Stark’s party next weekend.”

 

“Maybe,” she answered, drawing out the word.

 

Bucky rolled his eyes.

 

“In exchange for what?” He asked.

 

“Let me cut your hair.”

 

Bucky ran a hand through his hair. It was long enough now that it was touching his shoulders, but, really, it wasn’t  _ that _ long. And he washed it. He didn’t look that bad.

 

“Let me cut your hair and teach you how to style it and I’ll get you a Hugo Boss tuxedo that will fit you like it was made for you.”

 

Bucky knew enough about fashion to know that a Hugo Boss tuxedo wasn’t one that would ever fall into a price range he could afford.

 

“Free,” Natasha added, as if reading his thoughts.

 

“You’re just going to get me a tailored Hugo Boss tuxedo in a week? For free?”

 

“If you let me fix your hair.”

 

Bucky sighed and rolled his eyes.

 

It felt sketchy. Felt like a set up, felt like - felt like pretty much every single encounter he had ever had with Natasha.

 

She was Clint’s girlfriend and Clint, who had previously held the title of Bucky’s best friend, swore that Natasha had to be some kind of KGB agent or something. Nevermind that the KGB was long gone - had been since probably before she was even born - or that Clint and Natasha had been dating for five years and Clint should probably  _ know _ by now what his girlfriend did.

 

The moment Bucky had met her, when he had been in Ramstein pumped full of pain meds and still not lucid enough to know his arm was  _ gone _ , he had fallen hard and fast for her. She had bullied her way past a cadre of nurses, insisting that she was his sister, and only when they were alone in the room did she explain that she was Clint’s girlfriend. Clint had apparently asked her to check in on him and had told her that Bucky had completely awful taste and liked Peter Pan Bakery’s French Toast Cake Donuts and somehow this red-haired angel/demon woman had managed to smuggle a half dozen of the most delicious donuts on earth into his hospital room in Germany and they tasted fresh and perfect and like  _ home _ so much that they made Bucky start to cry. Natasha had held him, and it was then, with donut crumbs on his face, that Bucky had realized, had  _ felt _ , that his left arm was gone, and that his life had changed completely.

 

Not his best moment, but Natasha had held him, hadn’t said a word as he sobbed in her arms for what felt like an eternity, and when he finally came to a coughing, hiccuping stop, she handed him a thermos of hot chocolate and continued to hold him while he drank it.

 

Shady, from day one, but ready to do whatever it took to make sure he was okay. Clint hadn’t stood a chance of holding onto the best friend spot when Natasha was his competition.

 

“Fine,” Bucky sighed into the phone. “You can fix my hair.”

 

“Come over tonight for dinner. Clint will get you drunk enough that you won’t mind me holding sharp things near your head. Be there at eight. And bring Scrabble.”

 

“Scrabble?”

 

“The board game? With the letters?”

 

“I know what Scrabble is, Natasha.”

 

“Good. Then bring it. Clint wants to make some kind of art installation thing on the wall and he needs squares.”

 

“Wait, wait. You want me to bring you Scrabble so Clint can cannibalize it?”

 

“Why? What else would you do with it?”

 

“... play it?”

 

“Scrabble?” Natasha made a disgusted noise.

 

“Right. Of course not.” Bucky sighed. “Eight?”

 

“Yes. Eight. Oh, and you’re going on a date with one of Clint’s friends tomorrow night.”

 

“What? I’m -”

 

She hung up, leaving Bucky standing still in the middle of pedestrian traffic, staring up at the sky and wondering what in the actual  _ fuck _ his life was.

 

-o-

 

The MTA was a great way to cap off any day, in Bucky’s mind.

 

Especially a day at work.

 

Who  _ didn’t _ want to sit on a train for twenty minutes while they were waiting for the train ahead to move and then get told to change trains because the train ahead was actually broken?

 

It was times like this, as Bucky had to pull out his phone and figure out what bus to take to get to Clint’s place in Bed-Stuy, that Bucky thought that a dystopian future where Bruce Wayne rebuilt an entire city’s transit system wasn’t that bad.

 

Tony Stark clearly had money.  _ He _ should just buy the MTA and fix the damn thing. 

 

By the time Bucky finally got to Clint’s apartment, getting drunk with his two best friends was definitely the only way to salvage his day at all.

 

Natasha opened the door, a glass of red wine in hand and Bucky took it from her. Since she let him have it instead of killing him, he took a very large, very bitter sip.

 

“Fun day at work?” She asked with a smirk.

 

“Oh, just the best.”

 

Bucky toed off his shoes and followed Natasha into the living room. 

 

Clint, in the kitchen, saluted Bucky with a beer bottle while Natasha poured herself another glass on wine.

 

Bucky gingerly threw himself onto the couch, mindful of his wine, and sighed.

 

Natasha joined him, throwing her feet into his lap and leaning against the opposite end of the couch.

 

“Aside from your emergency tux situation, what happened?” She asked him.

 

“You have an emergency tux situation?” Clint’s voice was even smirking.

 

Bucky glared at him.

 

“First world problems, am I right?” Clint continued.

 

Natasha nudged Bucky with her heel to regain his attention.

 

“What happened?” She repeated.

 

Bucky sighed.

 

“My boss is making me go to this… ball fundraiser thing on Friday with him.”

 

“Making you,” Natasha repeated, voice in that low, deadly register that always made Bucky wonder just what, exactly Natasha did for a living.

 

Clint claimed he had no idea, and when asked, Natasha just shrugged and said she was a freelance consultant. Which meant  _ nothing _ .

 

“Yeah,” Bucky confirmed with a scowl. Neither Natasha nor Clint knew the particulars of why he had a job working for Alexander Pierce, but they both knew he hated it and they both constantly emailed him job advertisements. Well, Natasha constantly emailed him. Clint went weeks without doing it and then sent twelve in a single day before going back to radio silence again.

 

Natasha and Clint exchanged a look over Bucky’s head and he rolled his eyes.

 

“Clint’s right. First world problems. Woe is me, I have to wear a tux and eat free food and drink free champagne on Friday night. How will I ever survive?”

 

Natasha’s sharp gaze said she wasn’t buying it, but in the kitchen, Clint snorted a laugh.

 

“What are we eating tonight, anyway?” Bucky asked, desperate to change the subject.

 

“Well… I found this recipe for Doro Wat, but you know how I feel about eggs, so I took those out, and then figured I could experiment with some of the other ingredients so it’s kind of like a spicy chicken stew? Ish?”

 

Natasha and Bucky shared a smirk.

 

Both of them were disasters in the kitchen, though at least Bucky made an effort. The one time Natasha had offered to cook for Clint, early in their relationship - and the story was a secret that Clint threatened to kill Bucky over if he ever divulged it - she had produced a casserole that was burned  _ and _ raw. 

 

Clint, while not a savant, enjoyed cooking. He had a problem following directions, however, and was never able to actually follow a recipe. Which resulted in food that was occasionally fantastic and occasionally inedible.

 

At least the meal smelled good so far, even if Bucky questioned why they were eating a stew at the end of June. It was a question he kept to himself, however, because it was free food. And a free tux.

 

“Oh, hey, that reminds me,” Clint said. “Remember those guys who jumped me last week when I was coming home from work?”

 

“Yes?” Natasha asked, voice bored.

 

Bucky stared at her. She stared right back at him.

 

“They came by the gym today to apologize. Like - returned my cash and my watch and apologized. Craziest shit, huh?”

 

“Mmhmm,” Natasha agreed around a sip of wine. “Crazy.”

 

-o-

 

After a surprisingly delicious dinner, and after Natasha and Bucky had finished half of their second shared bottle of wine, Clint went to town with the Scrabble game that Bucky had liberated from the living room of his apartment while Natasha forced Bucky onto a barstool and swaddled him with towels.

 

“I know the plan was to get me drunk so I didn’t care about the sharp pointies near my head,” Bucky said as he finished off another glass of wine, “but are  _ you _ too drunk to cut my hair?”

 

Natasha snorted and glared at him.

 

“I am just drunk enough to give you the perfect haircut, James.”

 

Bucky looked over to Clint for backup, but the other man just shrugged.

 

“She cuts my hair.”

 

Clint’s hair was a mess. It was always a mess. But, Bucky had to admit, it had been a mess since the day they had met, when Clint’s hair had been buzzed short. His hair just refused to cooperate with products or gravity.

 

Bucky wisely decided not to comment and instead held himself still.

 

Until Natasha started to spray him with water.

 

“What the fuck?”

 

“Calm down. You aren’t a cat.”

 

“Actually,” Clint mused, “now that you mention it, he kinda is.”

 

Natasha sprayed him again and Bucky glared at her.

 

“You’re right,” she agreed. “He is.”

 

“Oh, fuck you both,” he growled.

 

“Now  _ that _ was a good time,” Clint grinned.

 

“Mm,” Natasha agreed with a grin of her own.

 

Bucky sighed and yeah, he had to admit, that  _ had _ been a good time.

 

Natasha sat down the water bottle and picked up a comb and a pair of very thin, very sharp scissors.

 

“Ready?” She asked him, looking more like she was about to start an interrogation than a haircut.

 

“Sure,” Bucky said and closed his eyes.

 

He tried not to anticipate her movements, tried to hold himself still as he sensed Natasha moving around him, as he felt the tug of the comb through his hair, the pull of the scissors and the  _ scwick scwick _ of the blades at work.

 

Bucky didn’t realize he was holding his breath until Natasha paused and put a hand on his chin.

 

He opened his eyes and saw her looking at him with concern.

 

“I’m fine.”

 

She nodded, accepting his assurance, and went back to work.

 

Bucky kept his eyes open, after that, focused on Clint as he glued Scrabble tiles to a large, thin piece of plywood. It didn’t seem as if there was any rhyme or reason to what he was doing - maybe he was trying to make words out of them, but the speed at which he was applying glue and the haphazard way he stuck the tiles on the wood made Bucky think that probably wasn’t the case.

 

“What’s he doing?” Bucky asked Natasha.

 

“I didn’t tell you about that charity thing I’m doing?” Clint asked.

 

Bucky and Natasha exchanged an eyeroll.

 

“No, you didn’t tell me about the charity thing you’re doing.”

 

“Right. It’s stupid - just this auction thing. Anyway, my buddy from the VA said that they were looking for art made by veterans and he’d passed on some of my photographs which… I’m kind of pissed about.”

 

Clint was an amazingly good photographer, but it wasn’t his job - he worked full time as a trainer at a crossfit gym and part time at an archery range as an instructor - and he didn’t really share his photographs with anyone outside of his circle of friends. He had done a few things, for the gym, for the range, but for the most part, his hobby was private. 

 

“You’re pissed so you’re…”

 

“Making some piece of shit Scrabble art. I already promised I’d do something for them, but that was before the guy went around telling everyone I was a fucking photographer. So. Scrabble art. I’m gonna glue all of this shit down and then stain it and voila.”

 

It was, Bucky reflected, just like Clint to take his revenge on someone by not only doing the right thing, but doing it in a way that only he would know was a big  _ fuck you _ . Everyone else would probably look at his shitty Scrabble art and think it was genius.

 

Natasha stepped back and smirked. She reached out and ran a hand through Bucky’s hair, shaking it out between her fingers.

 

“There. Painless.”

 

Clint looked up from his art project and grinned.

 

“Damn, Buck. You look good. About that fuck us both thing…”

 

Bucky rolled his eyes, but he accepted his phone from Natasha and used it to look at himself.

 

Huh.

 

He did look good.

 

Natasha hadn’t taken off too much length, and his hair was still long enough that he would be able to pull it all back, but she had given him a few layers, trimmed off his split ends and, even still kind of wet, his hair looked better than it had in a long time.

 

“Thank you,” he said.

 

Natasha smirked.

 

“Of course. Now about your date tomorrow night.”

 

Bucky groaned, he had forgotten about it - had hoped that Natasha would as well.

 

“Natasha -”

 

“You promised, James. I get you the suit, you bring the scrabble, let me cut your hair, and go on this date.”

 

“Who are you setting him up with?” Clint asked as he  _ tossed _ a Scrabble tile at the plywood.

 

“Steve.”

 

“ _ Steve _ ?” Clint echoed, eyes going wide. He looked from Natasha to Bucky and then back at Natasha. “You really think that’s a good idea?”

 

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky sighed. “What’s wrong with him?”

 

“Nothing,” Clint answered immediately when Natasha glared at him. “No, but really, nothing. I just - you think they’ll hit it off?”

 

Natasha crossed her arms over her chest and arched an eyebrow at Bucky.

 

“James and Steve were made for each other.”

 

And that… that didn’t sound ominous  _ at all _ .

* * *

 

 

[I'm on tumblr!](http://claraxbarton.tumblr.com)

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1: I'm a fucking idiot and I mis-tagged this as Shrunkyclunks and Cap!Steve/Modern Bucky when it's JUST Modern AU all around, no superpowers. I've fixed the tags. But I am so fucking sorry anyone who came for the Shrunkyclunks and is now stuck with an AU. I'm an idiot.
> 
> 2\. Updating a day early because I wasn't able to update Nobody Lost, Nobody Found this week and I feel guilty as all hell. I'm sorry, in the middle of three shows plus an overload schedule plus parenting and then I got a cold so I am. Not winning. All of the apologies. Seriously. All of them. To everyone.

 

Either Natasha thought Bucky was incapable of taking a date somewhere appropriate, or she hadn’t trusted him to follow-up at  _ all _ . If he was being mercilessly honest with himself, both were fair assumptions.

 

It didn’t mean he wasn’t a little peeved - and a lot impressed - when he showed up at the address she had texted him  _ right on time _ because she had threatened him with bodily harm if he was late.

 

The Barcade.

 

_ What a fucking awesome idea. _

 

Bucky hated that he had never thought about taking a date here. Then again, most of his ‘dates’ were hookups at bars, and, now that he thought about it, Bucky hadn’t actually  _ been _ on a date since…

 

High school?

 

No. No. He had gone on dates when he was at community college, working his ass off to earn his associates degree in mass communications while also working as a barback full time.

 

Still. Shit. That had been a lifetime ago. An  _ actual _ lifetime ago. When Bucky had two arms and the nightmares that woke him up in the middle of the night didn’t feature bombs or snipers or sand.

 

Bucky shoved all of those thoughts away as he stepped into the bar-arcade that was, in his mind, the best thing about Williamsburg and maybe the only thing worth stepping into the overly-hipster infused neighborhood for.

 

Looking around the interior, he saw that there was already a bit of a crowd. That wasn’t surprising, it was eight on a Saturday night. But it wasn’t packed, and Bucky was grateful for that.

 

What he wasn’t grateful for was the fact that the photo Natasha had shown Bucky of Steve wasn’t all that much help in locating his date.

 

Dark-blond hair. Beard. Always wears baseball hats and too-tight t-shirts. And glasses.

 

The bar was  _ filled _ with men who fit that description. Natasha’s vague description and the not quit in focus photo of the mysterious Steve, caught mid-laugh, could have applied to a tenth of Brooklyn.

 

“Bucky?”

 

The voice was rich and deep and close.

 

Taken aback, Bucky turned to see a dark-blond, bearded man in a baseball hat and a too-tight t-shirt. And glasses.

 

“Steve?”

 

The man smiled, and his face was already handsome - had been, even in the blurry photograph - but  _ now _ , with his full lips stretched wide and his teeth blinding Bucky, he was almost comically good looking.

 

“Yep,” the man said and held out his hand.

 

Bucky stared at him, and then at the hand.

 

_ What? _

 

Almost reflexively, Bucky put his hand in Steve’s and they shook hands.

 

And, sure, Bucky really didn’t have much experience dating. But this… this was not, he thought, the way most dates started. With a handshake.

 

Eventually, after it went on long enough for both of them to start blushing and for Steve’s smile to slide into an awkward almost-grimace, they let go of each other.

 

“It’s, uh, good to meet you,” Bucky offered.

 

“You too,” Steve said, blue eyes bright and he looked so damn eager, so  _ sincere _ . “Nat’s told me a lot about you - good things. Great things.”

 

Bucky could only stare. What the fuck had Natasha told this guy about him? And what the hell was there about him that could qualify as a  _ great thing _ ?

 

“Um, I’m sorry, I… I only just heard about you last night,” Bucky had to admit. Though, in retrospect, he really didn’t need to admit that. He hadn’t needed to say anything, in fact.

 

But Steve waved a hand dismissively.

 

“Good. Then you don’t have any expectations I need to live up to.”

 

“Oh, but I get saddled with living up to  _ your _ expectations?”

 

Steve smirked and, shoving his hands into his pockets, shrugged his shoulders.

 

Shoulders that were very broad, shoulders that emphasized just how narrow his waist was and how long his legs.

 

Christ. Steve was  _ hot _ .

 

“So, beer?” Steve asked, pulling Bucky’s gaze away from admiring his biceps.

 

“Beer sounds great.” Bucky looked around for an ATM and the quarter dispenser. “I’ll grab us some change for the games?”

 

Steve pulled two bank rolls full of quarters out of his right pocket.

 

“Damn. Here I was thinking you were just happy to see me.”

 

Steve laughed at the line, and Bucky found himself smirking and sinking into that rich, warm sound.

 

“Let me get the beer,” he insisted, “since you’re providing the quarters.”

 

Steve shrugged again.

 

“Sure.”

 

They found an empty spot at the bar and waited for one of the bartenders to get their orders.

 

“So, Nat said you were a journalist?”

 

Bucky snorted. That was… a word for it.

 

“Yeah. Sort of. It pays the bills.”

 

Steve nodded, but thankfully didn’t push.

 

“And you? She didn’t tell me what you did.”

 

“Oh.” Steve flushed. “I, uh, I work in film.”

 

The vague answer prompted Bucky to arch an eyebrow.

 

“What, are you…” he looked over Steve again. With a body like that, and those good looks? If he wasn’t an actor - and if he was an actor, Bucky was confident he would say so, then what did he do? “Are you a stunt guy or something?”

 

Steve sighed in relief and nodded.

 

“Yeah. Yeah. I do stunts.”

 

“That’s cool,” Bucky assured him, not sure why Steve seemed so hesitant to admit to his career. Especially since it wasn’t writing trash about people. “Hey, you actually… you kind of look like Steve Rogers.”

 

Steve, Bucky’s Steve, frowned.

 

“No, you do,” Bucky insisted. “I mean. Not the beard, or the glasses… and I think his shoulders aren’t as broad as yours and, I mean, you’ve got a killer smile.”

 

Steve arched an eyebrow.

 

“And he doesn’t?”

 

Bucky shrugged.

 

Steve Rogers, star of the Howling Commandos franchise of time-traveling action films, played Captain America. He’d done other stuff, Bucky was sure - and hell, Becca, his sister, could probably rattle off Steve Rogers’s entire IMDB career listing - but Bucky had only ever seen him as Captain America. 

 

“He’s okay. I mean - your smile is genuine, you know?”

 

Said smile made a reappearance, a little small, but highlighted perfectly by Steve’s blush.

 

“What can I get you boys?”

 

Bucky looked away from Steve and to the bartender.

 

“A glass of the Pilsner on draft for me,” he said and then turned to Steve with an arched eyebrow.

 

“The same,” Steve said, still blushing.

 

The bartender nodded and moved off to get their beers.

 

“You ever work with him?” Bucky asked.

 

“Who?”

 

“Steve Rogers.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Bucky raised both his eyebrows.

 

“And… how was he?”

 

Steve sighed and shrugged, looking trapped and defensive.

 

“He was okay.”

 

“Hm.”

 

“What does hm mean?” Steve asked.

 

Bucky slid his card over to the bartender when she came back with their glasses.

 

“I’ll open a tab,” he told her.

 

She nodded and picked up his card.

 

Bucky handed Steve one of the beers and took the other for himself.

 

“I just… I mean, there’s no way the guy can be as perfect as he seems, right? I mean, he won the freakin’ Medal of Honor when he was in the service and then he became a movie star and he what… spends all of his time doing charity work? That’s not real. Like, that’s not a life. It’s gotta be some kind of PR thing, right?”

 

Steve frowned and took a thoughtful sip of his beer.

 

“I don’t know,” he finally said, and it sounded like a painful admission.

 

Bucky decided to change the subject. After all, he didn’t care that much about Steve Rogers.. He admired the guy, in an abstract way, because of his service and because he was a  _ legend _ in the Army, and while he could admit that Steve Rogers was handsome, Bucky just… didn’t care all that much about movie stars. Especially not since starting his job, which primarily consisted of digging through the mountains of shit that movie stars got themselves into and decided  _ which _ horror story to publish about them because he almost always had too many choices.

 

“So. When Natasha told you all of those great things about me, did she happen to mention that I’m fucking  _ amazing _ at video games?”

 

Steve looked relieved at the change in subject. 

 

“No. She did mention you were a competitive asshole, though.”

 

Bucky laughed. It was, after all, true.

 

Steve smirked at the sound.

 

“What about you?” Bucky asked, already looking around the bar to see which games were open.

 

“Oh, I’m definitely a competitive asshole,” Steve assured him.

 

Just  _ why _ that sounded so hot, Bucky had no idea.

 

But they grinned at each other again, and Bucky could see that the feeling wasn’t one-sided.

 

“C’mon,” he bumped his shoulder against Steve’s, “Aero Fighters 2 is free.”

 

Steve hummed as he took a sip from his beer.

 

“Big mistake, Bucky. I am fucking  _ amazing _ at Aero Fighters 2.”

 

“Yeah? Good. Cuz so am I.”

 

-o-

 

Two hours later, the bar was packed, they were both on their fourth pints, and Steve and Bucky had gotten into no less than six arguments about video games, Yoko Ono, the Mets, and… and Bucky was pretty sure there had been a moment where they glared at each other and growled about the Tappan Zee bridge.

 

It was, without a doubt, the most fun Bucky had had in forever.

 

Fun that was, unfortunately, diminishing with each shoulder bump from a stranger pressing close to watch Steve and Bucky play, and from the now claustrophobic atmosphere of the bar.

 

_ Hipsters _ , Bucky thought uncharitably as the fourth lumberjack wanna be of the night grinned at him and squeezed way too close to move by to get to another machine.

 

Steve seemed to be suffering just as much, his open, delighted expression growing more closed with every jostle he or Bucky suffered.

 

But Steve seemed just as reluctant as Bucky to actually call an end to the evening.

 

That is, until a guy draped himself against the side of the Galaga machine and reached out to tap Bucky’s prosthetic arm.

 

“Hey, nice hardware,” the guy said with a smug grin. Bucky couldn’t be sure, but he really thought the guy was hitting on him.

 

“Not as good as the original,” Bucky sneered, because it was his  _ arm _ and it wasn’t just a toy for people to play with.

 

The guy winked. Actually  _ winked _ at him. 

 

“Bet it’s better for some things, though, huh?”

 

Bucky stared. Because - okay, sure, the guy was definitely hitting on him and the innuendo was impossible to miss and yeah. Yeah, Bucky  _ had _ tried to masturbate with the arm and yeah, actually it  _ was _ better but -

 

He had a moment of panic as he looked the guy over again. Had he and Bucky hooked up before?

 

The guy - ironic t-shirt half covered with a flannel, beard trimmed close and jeans so tight they went beyond the concept of  _ skinny _ \- he looked like anyone else in the bar. But he didn’t look familiar to Bucky. That was a relief.

 

“Hey.”

 

It was Steve, rich voice hot against the side of Bucky’s neck as he leaned close. Bucky suppressed a shiver. They had been touching each other all night - jostling each other or shoving at each other while they played, steadying each other whenever a hipster got too close - but this was different. And it was… really damn sexy to feel the heat of Steve’s body so close to his own and to know that Steve’s lips were so close to his own skin.

 

“Hey yourself,” Bucky responded, turning to Steve with a relieved grin that immediately melted away because holy shit Steve was even closer than he thought and Steve’s eyes were dark with - anger?  _ Jealousy _ ?

 

“You wanna get out of here?”

 

“Hell yes.” They were in the middle of the game, and Bucky had been doing his best to show off, but the look in Steve’s eyes promised more than enough reward if he stepped away from the game and from the hipster at his side.

 

Bucky didn’t even look back as they walked out. 

 

Until Steve made him go back inside to close his tab and get his credit card.

 

-o-

 

Steve’s apartment was a house. A renovated brownstone off St. John’s that had Bucky actually suppressing a whistle as Steve opened his red front door and let them in. It was dark, but as soon as Steve flicked on a light in the hallway, Bucky could see that the place was  _ nice _ . Not just the fact that it was an entire house - but it was well cared for, with gorgeous dark wood floors and white walls that were the perfect background to the pieces of art and the posters that Steve had up on the walls.

 

“Damn,” Bucky had to say as he followed Steve’s example and toed off his shoes, “being a stunt guy pays well.”

 

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “Well. Yeah. It’s good money. I think stunt people should be paid more, though - what they - what we do is dangerous and without th - us, it’s impossible to make those cool action movies.”

 

Bucky raised an eyebrow. Steve didn’t sound bitter, but he sounded angry and… self-righteous?

 

It was kind of hot.

 

Then again, everything Steve did was kind of or  _ very _ hot.

 

Bucky smirked and Steve actually blushed as he pulled off his hat and glasses. He put them down on a table in the hallway, dropping his cell phone, wallet and keys there as well.

 

Steve without the hat and glasses was…

 

It just wasn’t  _ fair _ for someone to be that attractive. He had been hot before, and Bucky had always had a thing for muscular guys in glasses, but now, without the hat and the layer of glass…

 

“Another beer?” Steve asked, pulling Bucky out of his very pleasant daydream of seeing what the rest of Steve looked like.

 

“Sure.”

 

Steve led Bucky into a room, presumably the living room if the long couch and the two armchairs were any indication, and gestured towards the couch.

 

“Have a seat. Pilsner okay with you?”

 

“Yeah, of course.”

 

Bucky sat down on the couch, sinking into the soft, deep cushions and feeling like he could  _ die _ there. Jesus. He didn’t think he had ever been on a couch this comfortable. Or this expensive. 

 

Steve seemed to have fairly simple tastes - everything was clean lines, mostly white, black or dark wood. Except for the art, the memorabilia, the posters and the books crammed into the floor to ceiling bookcases on one wall. All of those were a riot of rich, warm color.

 

He thought about getting up to look at the books, but the couch was  _ really  _ comfortable, so instead he stretched out, leaning against one corner and draping an arm over the back of the couch.

 

Bucky realized he was going to have to thank Nat for this. Hell, he was going to have to put up with months of smugness from her after this. And, well, fair enough.

 

“Hey.”

 

He looked up to see Steve leaning against the wall, beers in hand, looking at him with heat in his eyes and a stupid grin on his face.

 

“Hey yourself.”

 

“You look good on my couch.”

 

Bucky shrugged, not quite able to kill his smirk.

 

“I look good everywhere,” he responded.

 

“Probably,” Steve allowed, still grinning like an idiot.

 

“Probably - what do you mean  _ probably _ ?”

 

“I don’t have enough… experiential evidence to conclude one way or another.”

 

Bucky rolled his eyes.

 

_ Steve was a fucking dork _ .

 

“Oh yeah?” Bucky asked as he stood up, feeling the hot weight of Steve’s eyes track his movements. Bucky reached behind his neck with his right hand and tugged his shirt up and over his head. He still had Steve’s undivided attention. Well, his  _ abs _ had Steve’s undivided attention.

 

Bucky dropped the shirt onto the arm of Steve’s couch.

 

“Why don’t we see about getting you some of that evidence, huh?”

 

Steve finally pulled his gaze back to Bucky’s face.

 

“I dunno. I mean, I just opened these beers.” Steve lifted them in support of his words. And then took a long, slow sip from one.

 

Bucky glared and Steve choked.

 

“Thought I could do that with a straight face,” Steve grinned, actually having to wipe a bit of beer off his chin, “but you look like I just cancelled Christmas.”

 

“I’m Jewish.”

 

“And wouldn’t it suck to have no presents for Hanukkah this year?”

 

Bucky rolled his eyes and put his hands on his hips.

 

“Are we doing this or not?”

 

Steve finally set down the fucking beers, but he kept leaning against the wall, crossing his arms and he  _ had _ to know how good it made his biceps look.

 

“Depends on your definition of ‘doing this’,” Steve said, still grinning, because he was an  _ asshole _ .

 

“What, you want me to beg to fuck you?”

 

“I wouldn’t complain.”

 

“You’re the one who invited me over to your house. This how you treat all of your guests?”

 

Steve rolled one shoulder in a lazy shrug and Bucky tried his best not to feel self-conscious under those dark blue eyes.

 

He knew that, objectively, he was attractive. Probably more so with a shirt on than off, unless you avoided looking at his left shoulder and the scarring around the joint where his prosthetic was fused to his body. 

 

But Steve wasn’t avoiding looking at his shoulder, and he definitely didn’t seem to have any complaints about the rest of Bucky that was on display either.

 

Still. It’d be nice not to be the only one standing around half-naked.

 

“Only the ones who are sexy little shits.”

 

Bucky rolled his eyes and snorted a laugh.

 

God, Steve was an asshole.

 

He did, however, finally take pity on Bucky and move away from the wall. He crossed the room in just a few strides, coming to a stop in front of Bucky so close that one step from either of them would result in Bucky’s bare chest pressed against Steve.

 

“So,” Steve said as he reached out and  _ finally _ touched Bucky, his right hand coming to rest low on Bucky’s left hip and his fingers teasing along Bucky’s skin just above the waistband of his jeans.

 

“So,” Bucky repeated and tried not to be embarrassed when his voice didn’t sound steady at  _ all _ .

 

“You mentioned something about fucking me,” Steve said, rubbing his thumb in an arc over Bucky’s skin and making him shiver.

 

Steve’s eyes were locked with his, pupils huge and dark so that the bright blue was only a thin ring now. 

 

_ Christ _ . They hadn’t even kissed yet.

 

“Something about it, yeah,” Bucky agreed and he licked his lower lip. He really wanted to kiss Steve. He  _ really _ wanted to feel the other man’s beard against his skin. 

 

“Mm. Well, since I’m such a good host, I like to give my guests what they want,” Steve smirked, like the punk he was, “so, is that what you want? To fuck me?”

 

Bucky swallowed hard and tried his damnedest to come up with something clever to say.

 

But Steve was staring at his mouth while Bucky bit his lower lip in concentration and really, weren’t words overrated anyway?

 

Kissing, now - kissing was not overrated. And kissing  _ Steve _ was holy shit -

 

One minute they were in the middle of the room, lips brushing together in a tease while Steve still smirked like the punk he was, and the next Bucky’s back was against the wall and some picture frame was digging into his left shoulder and Steve’s tongue was in his mouth and Bucky’s arms were around Steve’s neck and, quite frankly, it was perfect.

 

Steve was a little rough, using his slightly larger size to pin Bucky in place and grinning when biting Bucky’s lower lip elicited a groan and fine. That was fine. Bucky had no shame. Not anymore, and definitely not when having  _ beard burn _ was the reward, because  _ god _ , the way Steve’s beard scraped over his jaw, his neck, his cheeks felt amazing. Rough and smooth at the same time, kind of like the way Steve was kissing Bucky, the way he was holding him.

 

Bucky tugged on Steve’s hair, pulling him away from Bucky’s mouth and letting himself look at Steve’s dark eyes and flushed face and - and Bucky was definitely not the only one who liked it a little rough.

 

He grinned and Steve grinned back at him.

 

“So how do I look against your wall?”

 

Steve’s laugh was dark and smooth and pure sex.

 

“Not as good as you’re going to look on my bed.”

 

-o-

 

Getting woken up at two in the morning by a dick poking into his back was not, Bucky had to admit, the worst thing ever.

 

Not by a long shot.

 

Especially when he rolled over and kissed Steve until they were both breathless and the only snarky thing Steve managed to say was,

 

“Fuck, you’re insatiable.”

 

“You’re the one who was humping against me, pal,” Bucky gleefully pointed out and reached down to wrap his hand around Steve’s cock.

 

Steve sucked in a breath and his eyes closed.

 

“Yeah,” he whimpered. “Yeah, that was me.”

 

Bucky had to laugh, and Steve’s lips quirked up as he opened his eyes and looked down at Bucky.

 

“You’re gorgeous,” he said, as if Bucky wasn’t a fucking mess with a twisted body to match his twisted insides.

 

Bucky scowled and tried to move away from Steve’s earnest gaze.

 

But Steve pinned him in place, sliding his body over Bucky’s hips and pulling his hands above his head. He paused, arched an eyebrow as if asking for permission to continue manhandling Bucky, and Bucky had to roll his eyes.

 

“You are,” Steve insisted, as if they hadn’t had the moment of silent communication. “Your body is a work of art.” Steve, still holding onto Bucky’s hands, leaned down and mapped Bucky’s pectorals with his lips and teeth and tongue.

 

They had barely made it to the bed for round one, had actually ended up mostly on the floor, with Bucky just clinging to the sheets as Steve fucked him. Round two had been slower, had been Bucky spending half an hour fingering Steve open and listening to him whine and cajole and finally beg before he fucked him, slow and hard until they were both desperate for it and orgasm felt like an out of body experience. 

 

And apparently they were gearing up for round three, Steve definitely interested, and the press of Steve’s ass to Bucky’s cock making him interested as well.

 

He gave an experimental roll of his hips, and Steve hummed against Bucky’s skin and pressed back.

 

“You’re the one who looks like you were sculpted out of bronze,” Bucky had to point out. “I’m just… a Brancusi. You’re a Rodin.”

 

Steve snorted and then looked at Bucky’s face and grinned.

 

“Did you - did you just pull out art history to compliment me and insult yourself?”

 

Bucky flushed. And tried to push Steve away.

 

“Fuck off,” he muttered.

 

“No, no, no.” Steve pressed a kiss to Bucky’s jaw and cheek, trying for Bucky’s lips even as Bucky angled his face away. “Tell me more about figural sculpture.” Steve made it sound like a line, voice low and breathy. He thrust his cock against Bucky’s belly. “Gets me all hot and wet whenever anyone talks to me about...Alexander Calder.”

 

Bucky rolled his eyes and finally let Steve kiss him.

 

“You fucking punk,” he panted when the kiss finally ended, when Steve was still grinning at him but was just as breathless and wrecked-looking as Bucky felt.

 

Bucky flipped them over, so that he was able to pin Steve down.

 

“And Calder? Pfhht. For a guy as beautiful as you,” Bucky leaned down so that he was whispering in Steve’s ear, “I’d pull out Sol LeWitt.”

 

Steve groaned and arched up, either mocking Bucky or really wanting the extra friction.

 

Probably, Bucky reflected as he worked a hand between their bodies and gripped Steve’s cock, a bit of both.

 

Bucky sucked Steve’s right nipple into his mouth, rolling it between his lips and biting down just this side of hard, the way Steve seemed to like it, and sure enough Steve moaned and clutched at Bucky’s back.

 

“Yeah,” Bucky smirked at him. “You’re like Splotch 15.”

 

Steve stared and then gave a sharp, shocked laugh.

 

“I’m - you jerk. Splotch 15?”

 

Bucky grinned and continued to stroke Steve’s cock, twisting his wrist a bit and working a thumb over the sensitive underside until Steve was digging his fingers into Bucky’s shoulders and biting his lip.

 

“Oh yeah,” Bucky assured him, thinking about the fiberglass structure that was in City Hall Park, bright colors climbing up into the sky, somewhere between a city-scape and an organic formation, all sharp and steep.

 

“Christ,” Steve panted. “Splotch 15.”

 

“Hey, Splotch 15 is great. It’s… hard.” Bucky gave an appreciative squeeze to Steve’s cock. And he  _ did _ appreciate Steve’s cock - long and thick, so much like the rest of his body, and absolutely, hands down and mouth open, the prettiest cock Bucky had ever laid eyes on.

 

Steve choked on another laugh.

 

“Please tell me my dick doesn’t remind you of that fucking -“ Steve’s voice dyed in a guttural whine as Bucky licked a hot, wet stripe over the head of his cock.

 

“Sure does remind me of fucking,” Bucky assured him. 

 

“Christ. Let me fuck your mouth already so I don’t have to listen to this anymore.”

 

They were grinning at each other, and Bucky moved up Steve’s body to kiss him again.

 

“Since you asked so nicely,” Bucky purred after the kiss broke and he moved back down to sit between Steve’s legs, “I’m happy to oblige.”

 

“Oh my god, you’re going to murder me,” Steve groaned when Bucky flicked his tongue out, the barest tease of a touch.

 

“Murder by blow job. You know, I wouldn’t even be mad about that,” Bucky mused.

 

“Me either,” Steve agreed.

 

They held eye contact as Bucky finally lowered his head and did his level best to commit said murder.

 

He didn’t succeed, but his efforts did result in Steve making the most amazing whimper and practically contouring himself into a knot as he tried to fuck his cock into Bucky’s throat while Bucky tortured him by continually pulling away bit by bit.

 

Finally, he gave Steve what he wanted, and watching Steve come apart was just as glorious as it had been the first two times. 

 

Golden and glowing and dazed, Steve fell back onto the bed utterly spent and gave Bucky a sated, goofy smile that was warmer than the sun in Iraq and just as blinding.

 

“Give me a minute to like, remember my name and I’ll return the favor,” Steve muttered.

 

Bucky laughed and curled against his side.

 

“You can take more than a minute.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

“Sure, but the longer you take, the more return on the investment I expect.”

 

Steve snorted a laugh, but he pressed a kiss to Bucky’s forehead.

 

“Good. Because I’ve been thinking about getting my tongue in your ass ever since you destroyed that kid at Mortal Kombat II.”

 

“Steve, that’s just wrong.”

 

“Not as wrong as how hot you are when you say  _ Finish Him _ .”

 

-o-

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So very much thanks to CB for beta reading this for me. You're wonderful and amazing.


	3. Chapter 3

  
  


The Stark Gala was being held at Gotham Hall, and since it was a Friday night, the traffic in Midtown was painful.

 

Bucky, who had decided to take an Uber and charge it to HYDRA, didn’t really care.

 

If he arrived late - fine. Hopefully, he could arrive  _ so _ late that the damn event was over before he even arrived.

 

Sitting in the backseat of the Uber, he fiddled with the cuffs of his dress shirt. It probably should have been white, but when Natasha had given Bucky the choice of a black or a white dress shirt, he hadn’t hesitated at all before choosing the black.

 

Paired with the black tuxedo and the black bow tie, he looked far from welcoming. Far, he hoped, from whatever kind of  _ lure _ Pierce hoped Bucky would be to the rich and famous attending the gala that night.

 

He had shaved and showered after leaving work early that afternoon, and while he normally preferred at least a bit of stubble on his jaw, he had to admit that he looked decent. Especially with the haircut Natasha had given him.

 

When he texted Natasha and Clint a selfie before leaving his apartment, their responses had been almost simultaneous.

 

Eggplant emojis.

 

He could only hope that the guests at the gala weren’t as thirsty as his best friends.

 

When the Uber finally pulled up to the imposing facade of the Hall, Bucky sighed.

 

There was an actual red carpet adorning the steps into Gotham Hall, complete with roped off entrance, and there were quite a few reporters clustered on the other sides of the velvet ropes.

 

He hadn’t realized this event would be such a big deal, but he probably should have.

 

Tony Stark was, after all, one of Manhattan's most well known and certainly one of the city’s richest inhabitants. Stark’s father, Howard, had started Stark Industries before World War II and grown fat off of America’s involvement in armed conflict until, upon his father’s death fifteen years ago, Tony had inherited the company and gotten them out of guns immediately. These days, Stark Tech was at the cutting edge of renewable energy, medical innovation and telecommunications. There was, Bucky remembered, even talk of Stark funding a trip to Mars.

 

In addition to Tony Stark’s ability to make money out of just about anything he put his mind to, he also tended to give  _ away _ money and had a reputation as being one of the greatest philanthropists of his generation. This gala was only one of several pet projects for Stark, and one of at least three Veterans projects that he had attached his name too.

 

Bucky respected Stark. Had, even before he had been lucky enough to find himself in the clinical trials for StarkTech prosthetics after losing his arm. He had met the man, once, during the trials, had spent all of thirty seconds listening to Stark rattle off engineering details before smirking at Bucky and posing with him for a photo before Stark vanished. 

 

His brush with greatness, he had joked to Natasha and Clint after.

 

Bucky had never thought he would find himself a guest at one of Stark’s famous events, and he didn’t think he was imagining the raised eyebrows from the reporters as he got out of the car and approached the red carpet.

 

He didn’t belong on this side of the ropes, and they damn well knew it.

 

“Barnes.”

 

Jasper Sitwell, Pierce’s number two, was dressed in a traditional tux and looking at Bucky with disapproval.

 

“Sitwell.”

 

“You were supposed to be here half an hour ago.”

 

“Traffic,” Bucky said with a shrug that wasn’t the least bit apologetic.

 

Sitwell gave a disdainful snort and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

 

Bucky started to walk past him, but Sitwell held him back.

 

As a general rule, Bucky didn’t care much for people touching him, not outside of casual touches from his friends or more intimate touches from hook-ups, and it took all of his self-restraint not to push Sitwell away.

 

“He’s here,” Sitwell said into the phone before putting it back in his pocket.

 

“What?” Bucky asked with a sigh.

 

“I told Pierce you were finally here. He wants you to wait for him.”

 

Bucky gave him a look. Sitwell just raised his eyebrows.

 

They stood there glaring at each other for another five minutes before a large black SUV pulled up to the kerb.

 

Sitwell immediately moved to open the door and Bucky rolled his eyes as Pierce stepped out.

 

If the man has his head any farther up Pierce’s ass, Bucky would be able to see his balding head every time Pierce opened his mouth to talk.

 

“James,” Pierce greeted him with a warm, easy smile that Bucky knew from experience was absolutely fake.

 

“Mr. Pierce.”

 

Pierce held one arm out, in a clear gesture for Bucky to step closer to him, which Bucky did with some trepidation. He felt the fingers of Pierce’s right hand settle on his lower back, the touch proprietary and possessive.

 

“Smile,” Pierce instructed as they approached the reporters who, while nonplussed by Bucky, clearly recognized Pierce. “You’re here to impress.”

 

Bucky managed to lift one corner of his mouth, uneasy with Pierce’s proximity and the cameras and - well, every damn thing about this night.

 

It felt like it took hours to make it past the reporters and into the Hall, Pierce’s hand burning into Bucky’s back the entire time.

 

Finally, however, they were inside the imposing double doors and being led towards the Grand Ballroom.

 

Bucky had thought, had hoped, really, that Pierce would remove his hand once they were inside. 

 

No such luck, however, and Pierce’s hand moved lower, so that his fingers were just above the swell of Bucky’s ass.

 

“Remember what I said,” Pierce said in the same tone as his earlier instruction to smile. “Get me something I can use, and your debt won’t be quite as insurmountable, hm?”

 

Bucky had never been the type to grovel for Pierce, not like the other employees who were desperate for his approval, and that was probably a mistake on Bucky’s part. There was no reason to  _ want _ to piss off the guy who had assumed his debt and was keeping Bucky from being killed by the mob. 

 

But, as far as Bucky saw it, he was working his ass off and getting his hands filthy for Pierce. There was no reason to lick his shoes for that either.

 

“Why would anyone talk to me if they see me with you?” Bucky asked, pointing out what he thought was the obvious flaw in Pierce’s master plan.

 

But Pierce just smirked and continued to push Bucky towards the Grand Ballroom.

 

The hallway leading into the room was lined with tables. The tables, draped with Stark’s signature red and color, held objects on them - jewelry, books, antiques, photographs, art, framed tickets or framed “IOUs” - and next to each item was a registry.

 

It was a silent auction, the other way - aside from the exorbitant ticket prices - for Stark to raise money. Throughout the night, guests were expected to bid on the items up for auction, and at the end of the night the winners would be announced.

 

Pierce guided them past the tables without even glancing at any of the items on display.

 

At the open doors to the ballroom, however, he finally stopped propelling Bucky forward.

 

And, for all of thirty seconds, Bucky was able to look around and appreciate the sheer grandeur of Tony Stark’s ego.

 

The Grand Ballroom was huge, with the entrance elevated to look down on the rest of the room, and everything was dripping with red and gold. The lights, the chandelier, the dance floor, all of the tables. Gold trees lined the room, all tall enough that Bucky had to wonder if any of them would collapse, and on the branches of most of the trees were bright red apples.

 

Bucky wondered if Stark had chosen the allegory on purpose, and if so, what it said about  _ him _ and about the guests present tonight.

 

His attention was pulled away from the rest of the room by Pierce, however, who gave him a little shove towards the stairs.

 

Bucky only just refrained from glaring at him.

 

At the bottom of the steps, Pierce once again paused and it was obvious way. 

 

They had drawn a fair bit of attention, Pierce stopping directly under one of the golden lights so that his fair hair glinted and the white of his dress shirt stood out.

 

Bucky desperately wanted to roll his eyes.

 

Pierce leaned in close, his lips brushing against Bucky’s hair and making Bucky freeze.

 

“I hope your sister is enjoying working with her new personal trainer. Brock? He and I go way back,” Pierce chuckled, sending puffs of hot air against Bucky’s skin, “he thanked me for sending her his way. Said he’s planning on having a lot of fun with her.”

 

Bucky tried to pull away from Pierce, seeing  _ red _ and -

 

Pierce’s right hand moved lower and squeezed Bucky’s ass.

 

Bucky jerked free and glared at Pierce.

 

“What the -”

 

“James,” Pierce snapped. “Do your job and all of it goes away.”

 

And then he walked away.

 

Leaving Bucky standing there, eyes on him, breathing heavily, the instinct to  _ run _ pulsing through him, the need to call Becca making him jittery and nauseous.

 

“What an  _ awful _ man.”

 

Bucky sucked in a breath and looked at the source of those words - a woman in a sparkling red dress. A woman who was vaguely familiar to Bucky.

 

“Yeah,” he agreed shakily and ran a hand through his hair.

 

The woman’s eyes tracked the movement, and Bucky belated realized she was looking at his left hand.

 

“Oh, are you one of Tony’s Vets?” She asked him, practically purring.

 

Bucky stared at her - because he wasn’t anyone’s  _ anything _ . Except for maybe Pierce’s puppet.

 

She held out one perfectly manicured hand and introduced herself. 

 

“Addison Smith.”

 

The reason she was vaguely familiar to him was because she was the daughter of a former president, and he had seen her on television since his teens. And she was one of the Red Star’s favorite celebrities to publish gossip - always a reliable source, in Pierce’s words.

 

Bucky clumsily shook her hand and tried not to stare.

 

“Bucky Barnes,” he said.

 

She smiled, eyes bright, and looped her hand through his arm.

 

“Well, Mr. Barnes, why don’t we get you a drink and let’s try to pretend neither of us has the misfortune to know who Alexander Pierce is.”

 

And just like that, Bucky was being escorted through Stark’s gala on the arm of one of the most famous women in the country. A woman who introduced Bucky to all of  _ her _ friends.

 

A woman who seemed to know absolutely everyone.

 

-o-

 

After two hours of trying to be charming, of trying to get dirt Pierce might want, of trying to drink himself stupid, Bucky finally escaped Addison and everyone else.

 

He followed one of the catering staff through the kitchen, offering up his most sincere smirk when anyone gave him a look, and then made his way outside to a secluded alley.

 

A few of the staff were also out there, smoking or just lounging on their breaks, but they barely paid him any attention.

 

It was the middle of summer, and the air was hot and humid, and nearly as oppressive outside as it had been inside.

 

Still, there was something about the city lights overhead and the sounds of traffic that was, if not soothing, at least grounding.

 

Bucky was able to stand alone and close his eyes for a few minutes. Able to  _ breathe _ and not think about the politicians, the movie stars, the Wall Street tycoons and the dozens of celebrities he had been rubbing elbows with.

 

He had a solid minute of respite before he remembered Pierce’s threat to Becca.

 

Pulling out his phone, Bucky tried to think of how to word a warning to her - what he could  _ possibly _ say that wouldn’t come off as… crazy.

 

_ Stop seeing your trainer. _

 

_ Switch gyms. _

 

_ Have you considered the Witness Protection Program? _

 

His sister had just as much of the Barnes’ stubborn streak as he did, and any of those things was guaranteed to piss her off and result in the opposite of what Bucky wanted.

 

So, he settled on something innocuous, something stupid. Something that would hopefully assure him that she was okay.

 

**Hey. Miss your ugly face, kid** **_._ **

 

Even though it was a Friday night, Becca responded almost immediately.

 

**If you’ve got a craving for ugly, just look in the mirror. Jerk. Miss your stupid nose.**

 

Bucky’s lips twitched into a smile that almost immediately disappeared.

 

He was such a fuckup, to drag her into his mess. He -

 

“Hey.”

 

The voice was familiar, and Bucky put away his phone and looked up.

 

“Steve?”

 

Gone were the glasses, hat and too tight t-shirt.

 

Instead, Steve was dressed to the nines, hair impeccably styled. Even his beard somehow looked fancier.

 

“What are you doing here?” Bucky asked him.

 

He hadn’t seen Steve since their date the previous week, not since mid-afternoon the next day when, after a few more rounds of really fantastic sex, Bucky finally dressed and left his house feeling sore and  _ good _ in a way he couldn’t even remember.

 

They had spent the week texting, however, had even made plans to see each other on Sunday.

 

“Trying to find an opening to ask you for a dance, mostly.”

 

Bucky glared at him.

 

He hadn’t even noticed Steve all night. Then again, he had been practically attached to Addison, except for when she had loaned him out to dance with one of her friends. And Bucky had been too focused on his anger, his hatred of Pierce and of himself, and on the task at hand, to really take in his surroundings.

 

“So?” Steve asked.

 

“So what?”

 

“You wanna dance?” Steve was smirking at him, full lips spread in a wide curve, eyes crinkled at the corners. 

 

“Not really in the mood to go back inside yet,” Bucky sighed.

 

Steve nodded and held out his hand.

 

“Same. Good thing we can still hear the music out here, huh?”

 

Bucky listened and, sure enough, he could pick up the faint strains of the music that could, politely, be labeled as  _ smooth _ .

 

He shrugged and took Steve’s hand, pulling the other man close.

 

“Mind if I lead?” He asked.

 

Steve settled his hands on Bucky.

 

“Not if you let me lead the next one.”

 

Bucky huffed a laugh.

 

“Punk.”

 

“Jerk.”

 

He had been miserable all night, had been fighting gut-churning anger and had been practically vibrating with anxiety and the urge to  _ do _ something.

 

But now, with Steve in his arms, Bucky was able to take a few steadying breaths and relax.

 

He leaned his cheek against Steve’s.

 

“Been thinking about you,” Steve said into Bucky’s collar.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Mm. Been wondering if you’ll look as good in my shower as you did on the breakfast table.”

 

Bucky snorted a laugh, but he felt a rush of heat at the memory.

 

“Thought you wanted to watch the game on Sunday,” he said.

 

“Yeah. I’ll watch it and you’ll be on your knees blowing me. Eventually, we can take a shower.”

 

“Oh, is that how it’s gonna be?” Bucky pulled back to glare, even though, if he was honest with himself, the mental image of Steve sitting on that gorgeous white couch, watching baseball while Bucky did filthy things to him, wasn’t even a little upsetting.

 

Steve grinned, mouth curving against Bucky’s cheek. Because he was an asshole, and because he clearly knew that Bucky didn’t have a problem with that proposed plan at  _ all _ .

 

“Yep. But I’ll tell you what, if the Mets actually win, I’ll let you fuck me.”

 

“And if the Dodgers win? You gonna fuck me?” Bucky tried, and failed miserably, not to sound excited about the prospect of his favorite team losing to the fucking Dodgers.

 

Steve turned his head even to brush their lips together in a tease before he pulled back far enough to look at Bucky.

 

“ _ When _ the Dodgers win, I’m gonna fuck you so hard you won’t be able to sit comfortably all week.”

 

“ _ Jesus Christ _ , Steve,” Bucky muttered, feeling his entire face go hot.

 

“Yeah, it probably will be a religious experience for you,” Steve agreed.

 

Bucky had to laugh, and Steve grinned back at him.

 

“You’re such an asshole,” Bucky muttered.

 

“You love it,” Steve shrugged. And Bucky couldn’t really deny that.

 

They kept dancing, and one song bled into another without Steve insisting they switch who was leading, so Bucky didn’t say anything either.

 

It was the best Bucky had felt all week. A week that had been filled with writing his usual garbage for Pierce, that had been highlighted with the Red Star staff gathering to watch a pale faced political candidate announce that she was dropping out of the Senate race after an article - Bucky’s article - on her and her husband’s shared mistress having an abortion had been published.

 

Bucky knew he was a shit human, knew he was doing shit work for a shit boss, but the daily reminders of just how low he would stoop to keep Becca safe were disquieting.

 

“Hey, Buck, there’s something I need to tell you.”

 

Steve stopped dancing and his arms slid away from Bucky.

 

“What?” Bucky asked, looking at Steve with concern.

 

“I’m -”

 

“Barnes.”

 

It was Sitwell, standing in the door leading back into the kitchen, glaring at him.

 

“Sitwell.”

 

“Boss needs you.”

 

Bucky rolled his eyes.

 

“Sure. I’ll be there in a minute.” He turned back to Steve.

 

“ _ Now _ ,” Sitwell snapped.

 

Like Bucky was a dog misbehaving.

 

Bucky flushed in anger. Because, well, that was pretty much exactly what he was.

 

He stepped away from Steve.

 

“Call me later?” He suggested. “I gotta get back to work.”

 

Steve looked between Bucky and Sitwell with a frown, but he nodded reluctantly and watched Bucky walk away.

 

“You know him?” Sitwell asked once Bucky was in the kitchen with him.

 

“Yeah,” Bucky snapped. “Obviously.”

 

Sitwell looked… impressed? Bucky wasn’t sure. It wasn’t an expression he had ever seen on the other man’s face before.

 

“Right. Come with me.”

 

Obediently, Bucky followed Sitwell through the kitchen and back to the Grand Ballroom.

 

Pierce was sitting at one of the large, round tables, and the only open seat at the table was directly beside him. The rest of the table was full of people that Bucky recognized as being politicians to the right side of center.

 

“Ah, James,” Pierce greeted him with a smirk and patted the empty seat. “I wondered where you’d gone off to.”

 

Bucky sat down in the seat and immediately picked up the glass of champagne in front of him. It looked warm and a little flat - tasted warm and  _ very _ flat - but he drank it anyway while Sitwell leaned down and whispered something in Pierce’s ear.

 

“Really?” Pierce said, looking from Bucky to Sitwell.

 

Bucky stared back.

 

“Jasper was telling me about your friend. Steve.”

 

Bucky wasn’t sure how, or why, Pierce knew the name of a stunt double. But, then again, if Steve was  _ here _ , he was well-enough known or at least knew well-enough known people to be invited.

 

“He’s not my friend,” Bucky immediately responded. Because, well, they weren’t friends. But also because Bucky didn’t want Pierce anywhere near Steve. 

 

“Hm.” Pierce turned back to Sitwell, waving his fingers in some kind of silent command, and Sitwell smirked and left the table.

 

“Well, if he’s not your friend, at least tell me you managed to make a few  _ other _ friends tonight?”

 

Bucky wondered if there would ever be a time when he could punch that smug smirk off of Pierce’s face.

 

Probably not.

 

“I did,” he assured the other man.

 

Pierce smirked.

 

“Good. I expect a full write-up on my desk by Monday morning.”

 

Because of course he did.

 

There was a commotion at the front of the ballroom, and then none other than Tony Stark was taking the stage with the band.

 

“Well, good evening everyone and thanks for coming to my party,” the infamous philanthropist said into the microphone.

 

There was polite applause throughout the ballroom.

 

“I wanted to thank all of you for coming here tonight to drink champagne and raise money for a cause we can all appreciate - supporting our Veterans. Everything that we raise tonight is going towards the new Stark initiative to provide job training, housing and medical care for Veterans. And, of course, I, personally, will match every single dollar.”

 

He paused for more applause, and Bucky, as grateful as he was for what Stark was doing, found himself looking around the ballroom for Steve.

 

“Now, the bidding for the silent auction items has come to a close, and we wanted to announce our winners before all of you to get too drunk to remember you just bought a Monet.”

 

Bucky let himself completely zone out after that. He had no interest in knowing who - or how much - had bid on the items displayed in the hallway.

 

Even Pierce’s hand across the back of his chair, index finger idly tapping against Bucky’s spine, did little to keep him focused.

 

The ballroom was dark, lights almost entirely focused on Stark except for a soft golden glow over his captive audience. It wasn’t bright enough for Bucky to even really pick out anyone’s hair color. It was barely bright enough to allow the winning bidders to make their way to the stage and pose with Stark for a photograph to commemorate their generosity.

 

Except for Addison, who caught his eye and gave him a sympathetic look. It made his stomach turn, considering what she had confided in him that night about herself.

 

She just assumed that Bucky was a good guy. Assumed that he would keep her secrets. 

 

And Bucky was anything but a good guy.

 

“...oh, right. And here’s something juicy. The winning bid for a date with Steve Rogers. Now, Steve, as you all know, is a good friend of mine. Great guy - hero in real life and on the silver screen. And, for this noble cause, my pal Steve is going to take the winner sailing along the Hudson. Don’t worry - he actually knows how to sail. At least that’s what his agent told me.”

 

Bucky had heard the name  _ Steve _ and, stupidly, started to listen to Stark again.

 

It said something about himself, he was pretty sure, that he heard the name of his… whatever Steve was, and immediately thought of him.

 

Steve was, after all, a common name.

 

“Alright, and our winner, our very  _ generous _ winner who somehow thinks a day with Steve is worth half a million dollars, is… James Barnes.”

 

There was applause around the room.

 

“Get up,” Pierce hissed at Bucky. “And go up there.”

 

Bucky looked at him in confusion.

 

“I didn’t bid on that - I don’t have that kind of money. I don’t have  _ any _ money.”

 

Pierce gave him an all too familiar smirk.

 

“I took care of it for you. Now get up there and get your photo taken.”

 

Bucky managed to stand, and uneasily made his way through the crowd towards the stage.

 

“Hey,” Stark peered out at the dark ballroom, “hey, Steve, come up here. You’re almost as photogenic as me. You come pose with your lucky guy.”

 

More applause, and as Bucky climbed up the stairs leading to Stark, he was almost blinding by the intensity of the lights on him.

 

Stark threw one arm around him and pulled him close, his other arm raised expectantly towards the opposite side of the stage.

 

Bucky blinked, trying to  _ see _ anything at all, as a man stepped close to them.

 

A familiar man.

 

With dark blond hair and a beard.

 

“Alright, James Barnes, meet Steve Rogers. You two kids have fun and, you know, think of America on your date.”

 

Cameras flashed, taking their photo, and Bucky didn’t even care that his shocked, open-mouthed face was going to end up on the internet.

 

He was too busy staring at Steve.

 

_ His  _ Steve. The one who worked in film and thought Steve Rogers was okay.

 

Because, apparently,  _ his _ Steve  _ was _ Steve Rogers.

 

-o-

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

In a not at all shocking turn of events, Bucky did not spend Sunday with Steve.

 

He didn’t text Steve to tell him he wasn’t coming over, and Steve didn’t text him asking him to come over, so Bucky was pretty sure Steve was just as pissed and confused and over it as Bucky imagined him to be.

 

Of course, instead of spending Sunday watching baseball and fucking on even more of Steve’s furniture, Bucky spent it fighting off and then eventually giving in, to a full-blown panic attack.

 

Steve fucking Rogers.

 

He had been fucking Steve fucking Rogers and now - now he definitely wasn’t.

 

Because Steve hadn’t called, hadn’t texted, hadn’t anything and Bucky wasn’t a genius but he was at least smart enough to know why.

 

Because of who Bucky was. Because of who Bucky had attended that damn gala with.

 

Bucky hadn’t been able to pick Steve out of the crowd, but surely Steve had seen him sitting there beside Pierce as the man kept his arm around Bucky’s chair like he owned him. Which he more or less did.

 

Of course Steve hadn’t contacted Bucky after that.

 

Bucky couldn’t blame him. Couldn’t even bring himself to be even the slightest bit upset with Steve. After all, Steve was protecting himself.

 

Steve now knew who Bucky was, and Bucky now knew who Steve was.

 

It was dangerous, for Steve, and -

 

And Bucky was a danger to everyone around him. To Becca, to Steve. Hell, even to Clint and Natasha, his best and oldest and closest friends.

 

Bucky ruined literally everything he touched. Of course his… relationship or whatever with Steve was another casualty in the ongoing losing war Bucky was fighting.

 

By Monday morning, after having spent the better part of Sunday curled around the toilet and the worst part of it emptying out the bottle of tequila he had found on top of the fridge, Bucky was at a low point that felt all too familiar.

 

It was all he could do to put on jeans and a t-shirt, roll out of bed hungover as all hell, and make it to work before noon.

 

He must have looked and smelled like death, because everyone on his floor practically recoiled from him as he walked past their desks towards his own.

 

And then he came to a dead stop not five feet from his desk.

 

There was an enormous, garish bouquet of red roses on his desk, a photograph of a sailboat propped against it, and a sealed envelope with his name scrawled across the front.

 

Bucky looked around, but all of his colleagues were looking right back at him, not a single one of them making an effort to pretend they didn’t care what was going on with him.

 

So he sighed and approached his desk.

 

The flowers looked fresh and smelled overpowering.

 

The photograph of the sailboat meant little to Bucky. It looked… like a boat. But the photograph did, he realized on second glance, show Steve manning the wheel thing, bright hair golden in the sunlight and a grin on his face.

 

Reluctantly, Bucky picked up the envelope and opened it.

 

James,

 

Thank you so much for your generosity. This is a cause near to my heart, and it means a lot to me and to the thousands of veterans out there that you made the effort to donate to Stark Veterans Initiative.

I look forward to sailing with you this Saturday.

Meet me at Pier 66 at 10am. Don’t forget to bring sunscreen and wear comfortable clothes and rubber soled shoes.

 

See you soon,

Steve Rogers

 

It was so clearly a form letter, even though it was, presumably, in Steve’s handwriting. Even Bucky’s name looked like it had been added later, the lines just different enough to indicate that the pen hadn’t been the same, and Bucky had to wonder what Steve had been thinking when he wrote Bucky’s name.

 

Or even if Steve had been the one to do it. If Steve had written any part of the letter. It didn’t have any of Steve’s charm, any of his sass. It was dry and polite and distant.

 

Exactly the kind of thing a celebrity would write to the guy who had won a sailing trip with him.

 

Bucky sighed and stuffed the envelope into his backpack.

 

He wondered if it would be possible to cancel? Maybe he could feign an illness? Break a leg? Lose an eye?

 

After putting the enormous bouquet down on the floor, Bucky sat down at his desk and tried to type up a summary of all of the things he had learned at the gala that Pierce might be interested in.

 

It took him hours, not just because of his hangover, but also in large part because of the fact that James just didn’t want to sit there and list out all of the gossip that could ruin these peoples lives.

 

He was so damn tired of this. Of all of this and -

 

“Ah, James. Just the man I was looking for.”

 

It was Pierce, his voice all too familiar for Bucky, even hungover as he was, not to place immediately.

 

Slowly, Bucky turned around in his chair to find his boss standing behind him.

 

Once again, the entire floor seemed to be looking at Bucky.

 

“Let’s take a walk. You look like you could use some air.”

 

Pierce didn’t even wait for Bucky to get to his feet, just turned on his heel and started walking towards the elevators.

 

Slowly and reluctantly, Bucky got to his feet and followed.

 

Pierce waited until they were outside the building before speaking to Bucky again.

 

“Tell me how exactly you know Steve Rogers, James.”

 

Bucky considered lying.

 

“Remember, I’m the only person standing between your sister and some very angry men,” Pierce said, as if he could read Bucky’s mind.

 

As if Bucky could possibly forget that.

 

On Saturday, he had had lunch with Becca, had done his level best not to seem awkward and paranoid but she had eventually asked him what was wrong and he’d had shrug it off as a work thing. Which hadn’t even been a lie. And when he had finally gotten her to talk about her gym, she had gushed about her new trainer and Bucky had known anything he might say against the guy would come off as Bucky being the paranoid PTSD veteran brother who thought everyone was secretly awful. So he’d had to keep his mouth shut.

 

“We met on a blind date,” Bucky eventually said. “I didn’t know who he was. He didn’t know who I was.”

 

Pierce raised his eyebrows, which could have meant anything from ‘go on’ to ‘you’re an idiot.’ Probably it meant both.

 

“We’ve only been out one time. It… it’s not going anywhere.”

 

“Really? Jasper seemed to think you two had quite the connection. Dancing together and all of that.”

 

Bucky really, really hated Sitwell.

 

He forced a shrug.

 

“We were both kind of drunk. I think he was taking pity on me. I’m apparently not really his type.”

 

Pierce made a noncommittal sound.

 

“This whole sailing thing - probably a waste of your money, actually,” Bucky tried. “I bet if you call and cancel, Stark will let you have the money back and -“

 

“If you think, for one second, I’m going to let your personal interest in Steve Rogers get in the way of what could be the biggest story Red Star has ever landed, you’re even more delusional now than you were when I first met you,” Pierce interrupted, voice sharp and cold.

 

“I don’t have any personal interest in Steve Rogers.”

 

It almost wasn’t a lie. Bucky still couldn’t quite merge the image of his Steve and Steve Rogers together.

 

“Then stop coming up with half-assed excuses to not do your job. There’s no way Steve Rogers is the saint everyone thinks he is. If we can take him down, Red Star will be a legend. Find out everything you can about him. He’s got to have skeletons in his closet. Use the veterans angle - PTSD buddies or whatever. Find out what kind of nightmares he has. Find out all the things he’s done wrong. Find out secrets from his military career. Tell me every deviant thing you can think of. We’ll show America that Steve Rogers isn’t a straight-laced golden boy.”

 

“America already knows he isn’t straight-laced,” Bucky had to point out. Because he remembered when Steve Rogers had publicly come out as bisexual. Becca had texted him about it.

 

A photo of Steve Rogers as Captain America, but his classic red, white and blue uniform had been photoshopped to be in pink, blue and purple. Becca had captioned the photo the bisexual hero America deserves.

 

“And you’re going to show them just how far from that he really is,” Pierce said agreeably. “Have you fucked him yet?”

 

Bucky glared.

 

“Good. Write up that experience. We can do a full expose on just how… filthy Steve Rogers really is. You said it was just the one day? Steve Rogers engaging in one night stands? Perfect. Go on your date with him on Saturday. Get some photographs that we can run with the story - shirtless at least, naked would be better.”

 

Bucky had to stop walking, had to stop and try to breathe because - because what Pierce was suggesting was just wrong. It was wrong and it was awful and Bucky couldn’t do that to Steve. Not after -

 

Pierce noticed Bucky’s halt and turned to glare at him.

 

“Oh, you have a problem with this?”

 

“Yeah, I have a problem with this,” Bucky snarled. “He didn’t know who I was when we met. He didn’t -“

 

“Your sister didn’t know who Brock was when they met, either,” Pierce shrugged and pulled out his phone. “But maybe it’s time for her to find out?”

 

“No! No,” Bucky repeated at a lower volume.

 

“No? Then get me what I want.”

 

There had to be something Bucky could do. Some angle he could play that would make Pierce back off, that would give Bucky the chance to save Becca and keep Steve out of this. He just - he just needed time to figure out what the hell to do.

 

“I think this is a mistake,” Bucky said slowly, evenly.

 

“Do you now?.”

 

“We have the chance to get a lot more information on St -Rogers if I can keep him interested in me. A one night stand? Sure. That’ll sell a few issues. But then it will blow over. Everyone has sex, even Steve Rogers. But if… if I can get him to open up to me, then I can find all of those skeletons. No one goes through a war and comes out that… wholesome. Give me time, and I can get the story you want.”

 

Pierce considered it, looking Bucky over distrustfully for several long, tense moments.

 

“One month,” Pierce decided. “You’ve got one month to uncover Steve Rogers’ secrets.”

 

“Yeah. Okay.” Bucky nodded in agreement.

 

Was one month enough time to convince Becca to move to Canada? Or at least the west coast? Hadn’t she always wanted to live in Tokyo?

 

He would figure something out. He had to.

 

-o-

 

On Saturday morning, Bucky pulled himself out of bed and glared at his closet.

 

He glared at his closet until he settled on a black long-sleeved shirt and a pair of blue canvas shorts that he was fairly certain were actually Clint’s. Especially considering how tight they were on Bucky’s ass.

 

Which… all things considered, was good. Or bad. It was something, and that was about all that Bucky could bring himself to think about.

 

He still hadn’t come up with a plan, still hadn’t managed to figure out how he was supposed to even actually feel about Steve - Steve Rogers - and with everything else Bucky had to care about, well, wearing Clint’s too tight shorts were at the bottom of the list.

 

As was how the fuck he even had them in the first place.

 

Maybe it had been that time Clint was drunk and showed up at Bucky’s place at four in the morning and spent the rest of the too few pre-dawn hours spooning him in bed?

 

Or maybe it had been the time when Bucky had been drunk and gone over to Clint and Natasha’s place and - well.

 

There were a lot of times when that happened. Some of them ended with Bucky definitely needing a change of clothes.

 

Trying to remember when and how he had acquired the shorts actually kept Bucky’s mind off all of the other shit as he navigated the subway and buses to get to Pier 66.

 

He was a few minutes early, which was unfortunate, because he had hoped to be a little late.

 

Instead, he was early enough that he was treated to Steve’s ass as the man crouched down on the pier beside a sailboat - presumably the one from the photograph but Bucky honestly hadn’t looked that closely - and fiddled with a knotted rope.

 

It meant he was treated to Steve’s ass in a pair of khaki shorts, and Bucky reflexively let out an appreciative whistle.

 

Steve turned immediately, losing his balance and actually falling onto the dock and nearly braining himself on the hull of the boat. Somehow, however, he managed to catch himself and glared over at Bucky.

 

Bucky smirked as Steve pulled himself upright and revealed an entirely too perfect yachting outfit: the khaki shorts, a pair of scuffed blue boat shoes, a white t-shirt under a blue windbreaker and a hideous Dodgers cap.

 

He was unfairly sexy.

 

And a rather ridiculous contrast to Bucky’s all black attire.

 

“You came,” Steve said.

 

Bucky raised his eyebrows.

 

“This morning in the shower, yeah. That going to be a problem?”

 

Steve glared even as his cheeks heated up a bit.

 

“You never texted me. I wasn’t sure you would show up.”

 

Bucky shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged.

 

“Spent half a million dollars to go sailing - not like I’m going to miss out on a chance to get to know the Steve Rogers.”

 

Steve sighed.

 

“Yeah, Buck, I’m sorry about that. I tried to tell you when -“

 

Bucky held up one hand.

 

“Don’t worry about it. I lied to you, you lied to me. We both figured it didn’t matter and here we are.”

 

Steve frowned.

 

“You didn’t lie to me.”

 

“I work for Alexander Pierce? I write shitty gossip?”

 

“I knew that. Natasha told me.”

 

“What?”

 

“When she set us up - she told me you worked for him and hated it.”

 

“And that’s why you lied to me about who you were,” Bucky realized. Now he understood.

 

“Ah, no. I - I didn’t think about that, actually.” Steve offered up a rueful grin and raised his shoulders almost to his ears. “I just… wanted to go on a date with a cute guy who didn’t look at me and just think about Captain America.”

 

Bucky wasn’t sure he believed Steve. And hell, even if Steve was telling the truth, likely at least subconsciously he had wanted to protect himself from Bucky.

 

And he should protect himself from Bucky.

 

“Don’t worry. I’ve only seen one of your movies and I thought the time travel science was too hand-wavy and I pretty much lost interest in even following the plot when it became obvious you weren’t going to fuck the Falcon.”

 

Steve stared at Bucky for a minute, but then he burst out into laughter. The deep, chest heaving, belly clutching laugh that Bucky had earned a few times on their date and that, then as now, made his own lips twitch in amusement.

 

It made Bucky feel warm inside, made a bit of the overwhelming anxiety and fear recede just the slightest bit.

 

“So, you wanna go on this half a million dollar date?”

 

“You know I didn’t actually pay for it,” Bucky had to say. “My boss did.”

 

Steve shrugged.

 

“Good. I’d hate to think you wasted money on this when I’d’ve taken you out for free.”

 

“You get that my boss paid for this because he wants me to get dirt on you.”

 

“You already know my safe word and that I cry from a good rim job. If you just wanted dirt on me, you have it.”

 

“What do you mean a good rim job?”

 

“Top five rim jobs of my life,” Steve corrected. “So why haven’t I read about what it’s like to fuck Captain America yet?”

 

Bucky glared at him, and Steve was enough of an asshole to just grin back.

 

“Get on the boat,” Steve said and gestured to the sailboat. The Valkyrie, Bucky read the elegant scrawl across the back of the boat. “I wanna see if we can find a secluded place so I can fuck you on the deck.”

 

-o-

  
  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

  
  


Bucky stared at his computer and contemplated just… lifting his foot and kicking the monitor onto the floor.

 

Currently, he had five document tabs open on the screen, and he couldn’t bring himself to actually sit up and  _ add _ to any of them.

 

It was a damn game of roulette. 

 

_ Whose life will I ruin this week? _

 

There was the article on the Danish princess, who had had the misfortune to sleep with her chauffeur the weekend before her wedding to some Southeast Asian oil magnate.

 

Or the NHL player who was closeted but had really shitty luck at getting caught with boys in his lap when Pierce’s photographers were around.

 

Or the openly gay, supposedly happily married New York Senator whose wife was having an affair with a male real estate agent.

 

Or Pepper Potts, the woman who by all accounts  _ actually _ ran Stark Industries, and who, according to several very unconfirmed reports, spent half of her free time in Tony Stark’s bed and the other half of her free time making sure the billionaire had someone  _ else _ in his bed that was to his satisfaction.

 

Or, of course, there was Steve Rogers.

 

That document, unlike the other four, was completely blank. 

 

Bucky simply couldn’t bring himself to write  _ anything _ about Steve.

 

Even though… Christ, even though he had  _ so much _ he could have written.

 

Sure, the world was aware that Steve Rogers, actual war hero  _ and _ Hollywood actor best known as Captain America, was a smart ass and not at all afraid to tell reporters and politicians alike what he really thought about an issue.

 

But the world was definitely  _ not _ aware of what a filthy fucking mouth he had when he was begging Bucky to stop teasing him with his tongue and just fuck him already.

 

The world didn’t know that Steve Rogers, paragon of American virtue and patriotism, was actually a registered member of the socialist party - just like his mom had been - and that he actually had a dart board with Reagan’s face on it. Or the remnants of Reagan’s face. 

 

The world didn’t know that Steve liked to cuddle, or that he was the absolute  _ worst _ at phone sex because he couldn’t keep his shit together and starting laughing every time he said the word ‘dick’, as if he was some teenager who still had to rely on Vicky Secret magazines for porn.

 

The world didn’t know that Steve liked to spread Bucky out and lick and suck and bite his skin for what felt like goddamn  _ eternity _ before he finally put his mouth on Bucky’s cock and sucked him off.

 

The world didn’t know that Steve donated a shit ton of his paychecks to all kinds of charities - mostly LGBT+ groups that kept sending him mail, asking to give him awards. No one knew that Steve refused to be thought of as any kind of hero for that - or for anything else. 

 

The world didn’t know that Steve’s PTSD, which he had been pretty open about in a number of interviews that Bucky had broken down and searched YouTube for, usually manifested itself in the form of memories that latched onto him and had him sprinting for the toilet and clutching it while he vomited for hours and then stood under a freezing cold shower spray until Bucky managed to pull him out.

 

The world didn’t know that Steve actually liked to have his face fucked, actually liked it rough enough that he was left with a bruised throat and swollen lips and tear stained cheeks and a sore scalp from Bucky pulling his hair.

 

The world didn’t know that Steve was obsessed with pancakes. As in, able to monologue about the best types of grain and add-ins and syrups for long enough that the only way Bucky had been able to stop him was to kiss him until he forgot what he had been talking about.

 

The world didn’t know any of that, and now Bucky did.

 

Bucky, who worked for Alexander Pierce. Bucky, who wrote the shittiest of secrets and lies about people for a living.

 

Bucky didn’t deserve to know  _ any _ of that about Steve. 

 

And -

 

The phone on Bucky’s desk rang.

 

He glared at it, because getting a phone call on the desk phone was never great. Hell, getting a phone call on  _ any _ phone was never great. 

 

Clint and Nat and Becca all swore by texting. Becca going so far as to affect a horrified stage whisper whenever she deigned to answer the phone if Bucky called her.

 

And Steve… Steve actually  _ liked _ talking on the phone.

 

But he wouldn’t be calling Bucky’s  _ work _ phone.

 

No. The only people who ever called this line were other Red Star employees, or Red Star informants.

 

Basically, no one Bucky ever,  _ ever _ wanted to talk to.

 

The phone continued to ring, and with a sigh, Bucky reached for it.

 

“Barnes,” he growled into the receiver.

 

“Mr. Barnes, Mr. Pierce would like to see you.”

 

It was Sitwell, sounding as offensively smug and sycophantic as ever, and Bucky had to sigh.

 

“Sure,” he drawled. “Did he say when?”

 

“Immediately,” Sitwell responded and then hung up, not waiting for Bucky to say whether or not  _ he _ was available.

 

Because it didn’t matter, of course. Pierce said jump and everyone was expected to say  _ how high? _

 

Especially Bucky.

 

With another sigh, he replaced the receiver on the phone cradle and got to his feet. 

 

He took his time walking to the elevators, took his time pressing the button for Pierce’s floor, and kind of not-at-all-idly wished the elevators broke.

 

Bucky was pretty sure he knew what this meeting was about.

 

After all, it had been a month since Bucky agreed to go sailing with Steve Rogers.

 

And Pierce had given him one month to get enough dirt on Steve to write an exposé on him that would make Red Star even more infamous than it already was.

 

And Bucky? Bucky had a blank document to show for that month.

 

A blank doc and a month of dating Steve Rogers, which, all told, was more than Bucky thought he would ever have even dreamed possible.

 

Because Steve Rogers  _ was _ a paragon of virtue. He was generous and he was strong and proud and brave and  _ good _ in a way that was as intimidating as it was inspiring. And he was also a little shit, with too much sass and a filthy mouth and god, but he could fuck. 

 

The last month had been… surreal wasn’t even the best way to describe it.

 

They hadn’t been living in each other’s pockets, but they had talked to each other every day, had seen each other almost every other or every three days before Steve left on a press tour ten days ago, and Bucky couldn’t ever remember clicking with someone like this.

 

Not outside of Clint or Nat, and he didn’t really count either of them, because there was intimacy, and then there was sitting naked on the floor of Steve’s kitchen eating from an exploded box of Corn Pops while Steve told him about his mom’s passing in hospice care the previous year kind of intimacy.

 

So, sure, Bucky actually  _ did _ have enough ammunition to write whatever piece Pierce had in mind. But there was no way in hell he would. No way he even  _ could _ .

 

When Bucky walked into Pierce’s office, the man was standing in front of his own desk, arms folded over his chest, and looking like he was already disappointed in Bucky. As if Bucky had already failed him.

 

Which, considering the fact that Bucky hadn’t emailed said exposé to Pierce, was entirely true.

 

Bucky came to a stop a few feet from Pierce and waited for his boss to speak.

 

“Should I assume that you’ll have your article on Rogers done by the end of the day?” Pierce asked without any preamble.

 

Bucky bit down on the urge to snark. 

 

Fuck. Maybe he  _ had _ been spending too much time with Steve?

 

“No, it won’t be,” Bucky made himself say.

 

Pierce lifted his eyebrows in mock surprise.

 

“And why is that? I gave you one month, and you’ve never missed a deadline before. You, of all my employees, know what’s at stake when I’m disappointed.”

 

Bucky sighed.

 

“Look, it’s just… he’s an incredibly boring guy?”

 

“Then use what you know to make him incredibly  _ interesting _ . You’re a writer, James. Write  _ something _ .”

 

“He doesn’t even do  _ phone sex _ ,” Bucky argued, not really lying. Steve wasn’t  _ good _ at phone sex, but he seemed to  _ like _ attempting it just fine, if the last two weeks were anything to go by. “There’s just not much to work with unless you want me to flat out lie - and he’s a big enough star that he’s bound to have lawyers who will bring a suit against us.”

 

Pierce’s eyes narrowed and seemed to freeze over.

 

“James, you told me that with one month, you would have something for me.”

 

Bucky opened his mouth to speak, but Pierce waved him silent with a slicing motion of his right hand.

 

“Now, when we first met, you were nothing. You had over a hundred thousand dollars in gambling debts, you were using oxy to get through the night, and you didn’t even have a place to live. I told you then - that very  _ night _ that we met - that I was the kind of person who liked to help those in need. But I don’t do charity work, do I, James?”

 

Pierce waited in silence for Bucky to respond.

 

“No,” Bucky croaked, remembering the night they had met all too vividly for his own comfort.

 

“No, I don’t,” Pierce agreed. “I build partnerships, and for a partnership to work, there has to be trust, James. You trust me to cover your debts until you can pay them back, and I trust you to do your best work. It’s a good system. It’s an  _ easy _ system. But when it breaks down, well…” Pierce snorted derisively and rolled his shoulders. “Well, when partnerships break down things get messy. And when things get messy, people tend to get hurt. Don’t they, James?”

 

Pierce glared at Bucky until he nodded.

 

Bucky could still remember the taste of blood and vomit in his mouth from that night, from the enforcers at the hole in the wall gambling den kicking the shit out of him and Bucky vomiting in the back alley in the moment they gave him to breathe before they hit him again, before they demonstrated what would happen to him - what would happen to  _ Becca _ \- if Bucky didn’t follow through on his agreement to pay back Pierce for covering him.

 

“Now. We’ve had a good run. You’ve done good work for me. And I appreciate people who work hard for me. So I gave you a month, James. I relied on our mutual trust, and look what happened? You brought me  _ nothing _ .”

 

Pierce looked away from Bucky and out of the windows in his office, over the dusk settling onto Manhattan. 

 

“We agreed, did we not, James, that if you  _ failed _ me, I would have to take… retribution?”

 

They had. 

 

An enforcer had grabbed Bucky’s wallet and his phone and had pulled up Becca’s contact information and looked at her facebook profile and merrily informed Pierce that she was Bucky’s sister. Pierce had landed the next punch himself. Had waited until Bucky was looking up at him before telling him that if Bucky ever failed to meet the terms of their agreement, Becca would be the one to pay for it. 

 

“Yeah,” Bucky managed to say.

 

Pierce turned back to Bucky.

 

“You function just fine with one arm. Do you think your sister -”

 

“Just - wait!” Bucky held out both hands as Pierce reached towards his desk phone. “Please,” Bucky tacked on, feeling bile in his throat.

 

Pierce arched an eyebrow at him.

 

“‘ _ Please _ ?’” He mocked.

 

“I - Steve’s been out of town. A press tour. For the last two weeks. He gets back tomorrow. I swear. I’ll… I’ll get something. I will.”

 

Pierce glared at Bucky and Bucky held his breath.

 

Was one day long enough to… hell, to  _ what _ ?

 

Either get Becca to leave the country or tell Steve that Bucky was about to write an exposé about him and all of his secrets?

 

No. 

 

Not happening.

 

Bucky could make something up, though. He could lie. He could - 

 

Steve would be pissed. It would be an invasion of his privacy, and Steve valued that. It would be an invasion of his privacy and his trust, and he would hate Bucky for  _ lying _ , but…

 

But if Bucky had just a few more days, he could write an article about Steve that was salacious enough for Pierce without actually revealing the things that mattered most to Steve. 

 

Probably.

 

Maybe.

 

Pierce didn’t say anything.

 

“One more week,” Bucky bargained. “One more week and I fucking swear - I’ll have what you want.”

 

The silence in the room was intense enough that Bucky could  _ feel _ the throbbing of his own erratic pulse.

 

“One week,” Pierce finally said.

 

“Thank you,” Bucky choked out, hating himself. Hating Pierce. 

 

Pierce turned his back on Bucky, a clear signal that their meeting was over.

 

Bucky wasted no time in leaving the office, or in leaving the building. He didn’t even care that he left his hoodie at his desk.

 

He needed to get  _ out _ .

 

He needed to think.

 

He needed to breathe.

 

He needed - 

 

Hell. 

 

He needed a drink.

 

-o-

 

**Author's Note:**

> Since this fic is for my beta reader, I didn't want to ask her to beta read it, so, instead, I asked my bestie and the person whose FAULT IT IS that I started writing Marvel anyway, Kangofu_CB. All the thanks to you, seriously, you're amazing and damn am I lucky.


End file.
